What If You Price Your Home and the Appraisal Comes in Lower?

Imagine having your Long Beach home on the market for $700,000 in the best condition possible. You are patiently waiting for an offer…a few buyers come and go…then you get an offer for $650,000. You are a little disappointed so you counter the buyer back and settle at $680,000… Inside you are probably doing a little dance of joy and if asked could do cartwheels on the front lawn.

The Bank Appraiser Cometh

Then, the buyer’s bank sends out an appraisal and the home An evaluation is going to take into consideration the subject property’s square footage….usually 100 square feet less and 100 square feet more in the same type of neighborhood.

So, you property has 2,000 square feet. That means that the square footage range would be between 1900 to 2100. The appraisal will then search all of the most recent sales within the last six months in your neighborhood and similar areas. Their goal is to find three of the most comparable SOLD properties.

The appraiser informs the bank that based on the most recentcomparables is valued at $650,000.

What do you do now?

Well, you have a couple of options:

• Get stressed out

• Order your own appraisal

• Get a copy of the appraisal and ask the appraiser about the comparable properties that he used

• Lower the price to the appraised value

• Decide to lease the home out instead

• Stay in the home

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